Comments/Ratings for a Single Item

@ Fergus:

I've now gotten rid of the piece notation I used, in the Pieces Section in this and my other remaining unpublished submissions. I wasn't sure about what to do in the Notes Sections regarding pieces in some cases - please let me know if I need to edit that in certain ways in any of the cases for these submissions.

I'll try to get around to changing the corresponding presets' similar piece notations, too, for already published PBM presets [pages].

The author, Kevin Pacey, has updated this page.

The piece notation you gave for the pieces might be what the Alfaerie Many set is using for these piece images, but within the context of the game itself, it is not suitable notation. Also, Game Courier can support aliases, and it now supports custom piece sets as well. So, Game Courier is not forcing you to use such notation, and it's best to not impose this kind of notation on your readers.

Why not Infanta and Inquisitor for RA/BD? The latter is alas subject to a collision with Bob's name for another piece (which might suggest retaining Bede; it's not great, being a name, but it's at least suggestive) with a superset of its move, but Infanta is otherwise unused.

Do you take notes on these things, or something? :D

Nice of you to remember my Inquisitor. I do, in fact, have a game brewing in my noggin that would use it (and its counterpart, the Retriever).

Why not Infanta and Inquisitor for RA/BD? The latter is alas subject to a collision with Bob's name for another piece (which might suggest retaining Bede; it's not great, being a name, but it's at least suggestive) with a superset of its move, but Infanta is otherwise unused.

Gilman suggests (in Diverging Further iirc) Dragoon for Derzhanski's Drake

@Bob: Begum at least is a preëxisting term, though distinguishing it from other aristocratic titles could ofc be tricky

EDIT: I didn't see this thread had been continued elsewhere

@Jean-Louis:

I prefer General for BDD; I use it in Vanguard Chess, and will put it in other games in the future.

The problem I have with names like Bibaba, Rukhfil, and Begum is this: We can make a 2D icon based more on the move combination than the name, but what would the piece look like in 3D? Those names do not inspire any imagery.

[edit: Reply to Bob Greenwade:]

I have up to possibly 28 viable CV ideas on the backburner, so I could be facing submitting 28 rules pages and 28 preset pages in future. That's besides looking for part-time work early in 2024 (unless my doctor soon says my occasional bad brain fog and/or other things make it tough for me to work).

@Bob

For the BD: well General as BDD was named as such 200 years ago and only once. Today we know so many more CV and none has taken that name again. In any case, General is a too generic word to be used as such in a chess variant. And the shogi variants kill the point with many "metal" Generals. So, I don't think Major for BD has an advantage. Keeping something from the parents, Bishop and Dabbaba, seems more important to my eyes.

For the RA: I also prefer my suggestion keeping some elements from the parents. After all, it is a principle that Betza applied with some success on other pieces.

For the QAD: Yes Quad would follow the principle I'm pushing above. However, this piece is a super-queen, I would have found a noun associated with a female ruler, Empress is already taken, Matriarch maybe. Or, what's wrong with Begum?

A "number zero" makes sense; it hadn't occurred to me.

And yeah, I'm wanting to make a Part 6 for the Icon Clearinghouse, along with games such as Okapi Chess, Architecture Wars, Tifinagh Soup, Monster Mash, and Unnecessarily Complicated Chess.

Yes, I had carefully counted the number of your submissions waiting in the 'quasi-queue' and since it exceeded 9 I thought there might be no limit nowadays, but I was wrong. Perhaps one submission is counted as 'number zero' in the database for a given CVP member in the 'quasi-queue'??

I have the exact same phenomenon. Since I joined, I've had one more slot than stated.

Right now I have three games* and the five-part Icon Clearinghouse ready to go, so I'm just waiting for an editor to approve them before I add more of my many ideas.

*Snake vs. Mongoose being the exception.

I just tried to post a new submission (of another CV rules page) from scratch, to work on by later editing it more thoroughly, and I was immediately blocked from submitting it by the CVP site system as it currently stands. Though I currently have 10 submissions in the 'quasi-queue' waiting for publication, the warning when I was blocked said I had just 9 - nine being the old limit, for veteran contributors at least (however they are defined, if at all), before it may have been changed to 10(!?) Interesting.

Commenting on some of Jean-Louis's suggestions:

• Bishop-Dabbaba: If a Bishop-Dabbabarider is a General, perhaps the BD could be a Major. (I was going to say Colonel, but that's taken by a Charging Knight/Rook.)
• Rook-Alfil: I'm thinking about what would be a rotary counterpart to Major. Miner (as a pun on Minor) seems possible, but a tad trite. Farmer, perhaps?
• Queen-Alfil-Dabbaba: Taking the initials, it could be a Quad.
• Knight-Pawn: That's new information to me, and it will affect some of the names in my Dragon Wars variant. Thanks for that!

Hi Jean-Louis:

Maybe it would be best to leave your (or other) name changes ideas suggestions to editor(s) to discuss with me/others if they wish. I am contemplating a mountain of other work to do, both on this CVP website and in my personal life as 2024 is looming, and I need a break from worrying about the finer points as I try to majorly plow ahead (or alternatively, rest when not doing so).

Again, Happy New Year!

Regards, Kevin

@Kevin: if I could comment and propose few suggestions about the name of the pieces:

• Bishop-Dabbaba: Bibaba (or Bibbaba, or Bidabba) (I never liked Bede, but maybe some do)

• Rook-Alfil: Rukfil (or Rukhfil, to link with some Oriental roots)

• the mighty Queen-Alfil-Dabbaba: Begum

• Knight-Pawn: yes called Dragon by problemists long time ago, and as such in the Piececlopedia. Interestingly, Derzhanski had proposed Drake (in https://www.chessvariants.com/piececlopedia.dir/whos-who-on-8x8.html) to distinguish from many other Dragons which dwell the chessvariant realm.

• Centaur, Sergeant : good

Well, I was just going by the 'Play' option link(s) (in a top horizontal Menu on this CVP site) to 'official' preset(s) that editor(s) eventually add to an 'official' rules page for the same CV. I thought I might be jumping the gun by beating them to it - actually I've never seen a guideline on this CVP site telling people not to do such a thing.

The 'official' presets for my batch of 9 2018 CVs can be found when going through the Alphabetical Index, though it's admittedly labour-intensive. Alternatively they can be found if someone visits my Personal Information page and clicks on the Invented Games for me, just if they happen to wonder what I've been up to, or they recall I invented a given game in 2018. Again, admittedly not user-friendly entirely.

Those 9 2018 presets of mine are all non-rules-enforcing, which I know you prefer not to play with. However, I'm not useful at Game Courier rules enforcing programming, nor am I at Play-Test Applet use for a similar purpose. Fortunately other people have programmed some of my CVs without my asking over the years. Always promising or popular ones, though.

[edit: I think it's not a bad idea to have a non-rules-enforcing preset readily available for use all the same, in case a rules enforcing one for the same CV suddenly no longer works due to bug(s) that may take a while to be fixed, if ever. For example, the rules enforcing preset for Rococo hasn't quite worked for every rule of that game for a long time, and Ultima's rules enforcing preset (the only preset for it at all!?) was completely broke for ages.]

Hi Kevin. Your answer is a bit surprising for me. When I write a GC preset page for one of my game, it is me who is including the link towards the page presenting the rules. Nobody else does it. I never thought that this could be inappropriate. Actually, I thought that it was normal work to do it and part of the task of writing a preset page.

On the other way around, when I'm writing a rule page for one of my game, I put whatever link I need as well as I write the text I want, and I put the graphics I need. So, I used to put a link to the corresponding preset page. Then, I submit the page to the editors. I never thought that doing this could be inappropriate. An example is https://www.chessvariants.com/invention/bigorra

Again, while doing that way, I never thought it could be inappropriate. I would find very severe be judged on that. I think a rule page is even better if it provides a link to a preset page, and the goal is to make nice and useful pages, no?

Hi Jean-Louis

I first made the preset plus diagram (and the names) in 2018, and they were approved by editor(s) back then (though soon people wanted rules pages for unmatched presets - odd as there had been lots of precedents by other people for presets without such).

It took me years to get around to making a rules page (and not just for this preset of 2018). I just made 9 rules page submissions in total to match the 9 unmatched 2018 'official' presets of mine (for 9 CVs).

Anyway, it's up to editor(s) to link 'official' presets to 'official' rules pages (once approved, or the other way around, which may be more usual). I could give a link to the preset, but the rules page hasn't been approved yet, so I think it might be doubly inappropriate. However, if the rules page is approved, and editor(s) are slow linking the 'official' preset page to to it, I could proceed as you suggest if a great deal of time goes by.

More comments: I suggest you make a link on this page to the page presenting the GC preset. So we will access it directly.

I also suggest to make an I.D., this is useful to evaluate the strenght of the pieces.

Finally if I may (no offense), the title "Compound Chess" is quite neutral and not very appealing. Why not something else carrying the idea and more sexy? Suggestions: Harlequin Chess, Patchwork Chess. Just saying.

Congratulations for using compound pieces which are in the same time very simple and also rarely employed!

These pieces (Bede (ugly name), RA, QAD, would deserve to have better name and icon (in Alfaerie) I think. Something different from what exists already if possible (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_fairy_chess_pieces).

Note to editors: I think this submission is ready.

Note also that I tried many times in the past but could not find a more conventional figurine for the Rook-Alfil piece type when I searched through the Alfaerie: Many piece set in CVP site's Diagram Designer.